Posts by Peter Simpson

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Trust me, it's laziness

"Finally, students would procrastinate about actually starting work, leaving a task until the last possible minute and deliberately completing it under severe time pressure. Leonardi says this was not laziness, but rather a form of boasting designed to show off one's competence among other students."

One of the few things I recall in great detail from my school days, is putting work off till the last moment.

That should read:

"BOFH-wannabee". Clearly an amateur.

A real BOFH would already be on the beach in the tropics, with the money untouchably in a Cayman Islands bank.

The boss would, of course, be "sleeping with the fishes" in the East River, after a tragic accident when his BMW's computer commanded full speed ahead and right turn, while crossing the Brooklyn Bridge.

(Mine's the one with the code listing marked "Property of BMW" in the pocket)

The worst thing about Organized Religion...

...is the "Organized" part.

Only in an organization, do you need a hierarchy, support structure, funding, followers in sufficient number to raise the appropriate funding...and then, of course, you need to "defend your turf", lest the "others" lure your followers to their heretical beliefs (along with their donations). It all goes downhill from there.

@AC

"Why don't you FreeTARDS get yourselves more than 1% of the operating system market and maybe you will get more than 1% of the development monies spent in the system dedicated to supporting you!"

I believe the point here is that there is no additional effort required to support Linux/other OS. The effort seems to have been exerted to *prevent* use by anything other than a few OS/browser combinations.

Wouldn't it be simpler

To look at all calls within the period of time of interest, and disallow the suspect phones from the network? That allows police and innocent civilians to continue using the system.

Should be easy enough to identify the culprits' cells...they would be PAYG, calling the same number or small group of numbers. With the surveillance society currently being developed in the US, I should think this is already being done...

Look for the buyer

So, these items probably wouldn't be much use to anyone but another telephone exchange, would they? I mean, they don't improve your home phone service, or make your stereo or microwave work any better, right?

So who's buying them? And I assume they have serial numbers on them, so any maintenance calls would pop up a red flag at the manufacturer's service facility.

Data General

deCastro left DEC, the story goes, not because Olsen didn't want a 16-bit minicomputer, but because Olsen didn't want *his* 16-bit mini. deCastro's team's design was passed over for the design that was to become the PDP-11.

The story continues that deCastro took the failed design, allegedly a 16-bit extension of the PDP-8 architecture, and went off to start DG, the design becoming the first NOVA. The story's probably not completely true, but there was a lot of bad feeling between Olsen and deCastro.

Though I worked at DG doing communications hardware, I always preferred the PDP-11 architecture.

I suppose

"just leave it alone" isn't an option for MS? Hotmail was fine for years. It was a good, basic, web mail service. Now that MS has bought them, it's one "improvement" after another. You'd almost think they're *trying* to break it in as many ways as possible...

They forgot the last step

Well done, PEO Pete!

As I get ready to go and vote, you remind me of the importance of the act. I cannot thank you enough, even though I'm in MA, for doing *more* than your part to make sure everyone who's eligable to vote, gets to vote.

Keep up the good work, and sleep soundly tonight, knowing that your work is appreciated.

A skeptic would say

There appears to be a subculture of "universities" that cater to those trying to acquire a degree while working. There are several around me here in Boston. I have always suspected that they (a) attach themselves (or are spun off from) universities that have a good reputation for traditional (full time) undergraduate programs, and (b) know that employers are paying a portion of the fees.

The true skeptic would say that they see a market and exploit it. A good example is a well known university in this area which has long emphasised a co-operative education, sending its undergraduates out for a semester or two working in industry. It has an excellent reputation. However, its evening and part time division has a reputation which is not quite as stellar. This organization hires part-time instructors (who often work a day job and are picking up some extra cash by working nights as part-time instructors) and somewhat more lax standards (both for instructors and course content). Suffice it to say that the evening courses are nowhere near the standard of the day, full time, ones. But they cost the same (or more, as you're taking them a-la-carte, if you will, rather than as a 4-year integrated program). Degree requirements can almost be guaranteed to change during the time you spend trying to get enough evening courses taken to finish. This means more courses than you had planned, and, of course, more of your time and money.